Some days the memory of my father's horrible stale cigarette and alcohol breath is enough to make me physically sick. I can remember trying to get away from him, terrified, and plotting to make my escape as soon as he fell asleep. And how my mother sat only feet away, having forced me to take her place. Her head should have been on that pillow! Instead she kept on knitting while her 6-year-old daughter was being damaged beyond any repair. She has never regretted what she has done to me. I wonder if at the moment of his death my father realized what a monster he had been.

Hi Justme, and welcome. Your words of pain are eloquent, and I am so sorry for your suffering. I pray that someday you will look back and realize how much better your life is without her. Take care.

E.

Lies are manipulations. Always.

Posts: 483 | Registered: Feb 2013

BlueBlueEyes♀ MemberMember # 43949

Posted: 3:33 PM, August 6th (Wednesday), 2014

I just found this thread and need a lot of help. I really don't know what to believe with my wh. In the just found out forum, several people warned me that a wh willie about sab to deflect the consequences for the A. I'm having a hard time believing a man would throw that out there. However, we've been married 30 years and I'm just now hearing this. Please someone read my story and help.

OW - multiple, just found out about ALL of them, Husband coming out of years of fog due to multiple childhood and military events.

Hopeful but cautious

Posts: 194 | Registered: Jul 2014 | From: Texas

5454real♂ MemberMember # 37455

Posted: 3:58 PM, August 6th (Wednesday), 2014

BBE, *disclaimer* I am not a CSAB survivor, my FWW is. I've looked into CSA quite a bit. I have somewhat of an issue with WH's story. He's had at *least* 6 different unconnected abusers of both genders. Highly unusual to say the least. Not impossible, but very atypical.

Proceed with extreme caution. If the story is accurate, he will need years of therapy just to uncover all the details.

Ok, I just reread my story to see where people are getting all of these abusers. I see that I ran everything together. Abuse was by different uncles and a high school male teacher. Questionable behavior of adult women when he was 18. One "neighbor in twenties and then two women in ND. He was technically of age but to me, big age gap. My question is how to handle the male abuse (no doubt by anyone this was abuse).

OW - multiple, just found out about ALL of them, Husband coming out of years of fog due to multiple childhood and military events.

Hopeful but cautious

Posts: 194 | Registered: Jul 2014 | From: Texas

nekorb♀ MemberMember # 40306

Posted: 8:14 PM, August 6th (Wednesday), 2014

BBE: my WH disclosed CSA after about 18 years together, and it was prior to the A. He has compartmentalized it SO much...he doesn't think it affects his daily life at all, doesn't need counseling to deal with the aftermath, he claims he doesn't even think about it.....but when he disclosed, suddenly so many things about our life started to fall into place.

My IC says the same defense mechanisms that allow him to compartmentalize the CSA allows him to compartmentalize his part in our marital problems and blameshift for the affair.

Me: BS 44; Him: WH 47 aka CAT- colossal asshat; Married 22 years
D-day: July 17, 2013, with TT to follow
D filed July 16, 2014, 363 days later than I should have
Psalms 27:14
Wait for The Lord; be strong and take heart. Wait for the Lord.

Posts: 1839 | Registered: Aug 2013

BlueBlueEyes♀ MemberMember # 43949

Posted: 8:24 PM, August 6th (Wednesday), 2014

My husband said it was a sickness and need to play the role of the abuser but with women. I don't want to get too graphic. He says now that he's finally told me everything from childhood (he didn't think he could ever tell me) that he's now working on himself with adult eyes and not the wounded child's perspective. He says he will never cheat and do that to himself ever again. He doesn't miss anything about the APs and doesn't think if them fondly. Are any of you buying this. I truly don't trust my feelings any more. To the point where I told him today that I don't think he can fix us and him at the same time. I told him I'm working on my exit plan. I'm so confused. Serious roller coaster. I want him to be the man I thought he was. I'm not sure I even like who he might be.

OW - multiple, just found out about ALL of them, Husband coming out of years of fog due to multiple childhood and military events.

Hopeful but cautious

Posts: 194 | Registered: Jul 2014 | From: Texas

20WrongsVs1♀ MemberMember # 39000

Posted: 8:02 PM, August 7th (Thursday), 2014

Blue, what you described in your last post, yes, I completely buy it. Unfortunately. Recreating childhood abuse is common in adult survivors. So no, again (I answered you in BS Q's to WS awhile back), I doubt he's making any of it up.

Read The Sexual Hearing Journey by Wendy Maltz. Both of you. It was rec'd to me by someone here on SI, in my early days, and it set me on the path to understanding how CSA had affected me.

I'm also in agreement that he is probably not lying about his past abuse, as if it's not plausible because there were multiple abusers, it's actually quite common. Survivors tend to be revictimized again and again because their ability to recognize boundaries, of their own or others, is seriously impaired. Regular responses to advances or invasion of personal space becomes a freezing moment, as they've been programmed that "no" is futile.

I was sexually abused by my adoptive father, my brother, a neighbor boy who was much older, my sister touched me once inappropriately that I can remember, her boyfriend touched me once inappropriately, and I was sexually assaulted by a 40 year old when I was 18.

Reenacting the abuse was like a compulsion. I was very ashamed of it, and to tell my spouse was terrifying for fear he'd think I was super sick and run for the hills, and maybe I am, but he didn't think so.

Also, my husband's family has history of abuse on his mother's side, 10 kids, all 6 girls sexually abused. They are all in their 40's and 50's, and only recently have the oldest ones just told their husbands. Seems strange for those on the outside of abuse, but it's very shameful and difficult to talk about, survivors would just like to forget it. It doesn't surprise me when I hear someone has gone 20-30 years before telling anyone, let alone their spouse. My sister was 8 years into her marriage before she told her husband. He was devastated.

You are not obligated to stay with your cheating husband just because he is now trying to face his past. He still cheated on you and that was completely wrong. He cannot fix the marriage and himself at the same time, you are right. Don't stick around if you can't wait, you owe him nothing, don't "buy" anything you don't want to. Take care of you and continue to work on your exit plan in case he doesn't follow through or falls into old patterns.

Wrong and Caspers,
Thank you both. I really want to believe him and that we are working through things, but I don't have any working knowledge on what to expect with any if this. People keep advising me to be wary of his story. It really makes me doubt myself because members here have seen it all and I trust their experience. Lately, I feel surrounded with past abuse of family members. Talked to husbands sisters... Ug.

OW - multiple, just found out about ALL of them, Husband coming out of years of fog due to multiple childhood and military events.

Hopeful but cautious

Posts: 194 | Registered: Jul 2014 | From: Texas

Healinggirl♀ MemberMember # 39747

Posted: 2:11 AM, August 12th (Tuesday), 2014

Blue blue eyes, I felt exactly the same as you on DDay. My husband had kept his abuse secret for 47 years. He recreated the abuse over and over again with prostitutes. The final one wanted an emotional commitment and that's what finally broke him and he finally confessed to everything.

It's been almost two years of questioning him, doing my own research, reading books, etc. He's been in therapy and reading, answering my questions, and doing everything he could to heal both himself and me.

It's been the hardest thing we've both ever had to deal with but it's working. The after effects of abuse can be healed. He's worked very hard though, both to deal with the abuse and to help me get through this.

As far as I can understand, the unconscious mind drives them to recreate the abuse. My husband would go to McDonalds and eat and eat till he almost threw up in an attempt to stop feeling the disgust of what he'd just done with another woman, yet the compulsion remained .... until he started dealing with the abuse.

The abuse was forced on them, and recreating it may well be post traumatic stress disorder.

I know everyone's circumstances are different, but I have managed to work with him in fixing us both, we worked as a team. I didn't do it alone, we did it together, and in the process we've developed a much stronger bond than we ever had before.

I'm so relieved to find people in this forum with some answers and guidance for me. My whole world has changed. I love my husband, and I know he loves me. As someone who was never (thankfully)abused, I have a hard time understanding how the victims feel such guilt. My husband's feelings are what I would expect the abuser SHOULD have felt and obviously didn't. I never dreamed that he was dealing with such a heavy problem on his own. I wish I'd have understood this a very long time ago. As sad as I am that you are all dealing with this as well, I feel very lucky to have found support here.

OW - multiple, just found out about ALL of them, Husband coming out of years of fog due to multiple childhood and military events.

Hopeful but cautious

Posts: 194 | Registered: Jul 2014 | From: Texas

Healinggirl♀ MemberMember # 39747

Posted: 9:24 AM, August 13th (Wednesday), 2014

I've never been abused either and I've accepted that I can never fully understand what my husband went through as a child. I do know that it was a massive burden of guilt and shame that stayed with him for decades, not to mention the boundary issues and the warped sex that they were introduced to.

He was abused by a man, too, which is why he felt such shame. Ironically, I worked with this pervert in my first job, so I knew him. It makes my blood boil that people can do this to children.

It's a mental wound inside them that bleeds for years unseen, and can become 'infected' with repetition of the abuse.

Working through this with my husband has been so rewarding for both of us because he's emerged as such a lovely man, with such enormous compassion for people. And in his case, I don't think it's likely he'll ever go down the infidelity path again because the PTSD is healing. Now he's talking about it, the triggers have fizzled out and the compulsion has gone.

I don't believe I'm co-dependent, but I felt that he badly needed my help and I was prepared to try. In helping him, I realised exactly the 'why' and that helped my healing enormously.

It's not for everyone to do it this way, and that's ok. I'm only giving my own experience here.

H,
What types if things did you do to help him? Our situations sound eerily similar. I don't think I'm codependent either as I have very strict boundaries on what I tolerate and what I don't. However, this is something I really don't understand and certainly don't judge. Funny, I don't believe my husband will ever cheat again either, but I don't trust my instincts yet. I ordered the book recommended above, I'm spending quality time with my husband, he's in counseling and I'm getting my help here. I know everyone recommends IC, but I'm not comfortable with that yet.

OW - multiple, just found out about ALL of them, Husband coming out of years of fog due to multiple childhood and military events.

Hopeful but cautious

Posts: 194 | Registered: Jul 2014 | From: Texas

Healinggirl♀ MemberMember # 39747

Posted: 3:00 AM, August 14th (Thursday), 2014

When I got upset and questioned him, he kept saying things that I didn't understand...like 'I was standing in the doorway watching myself, like it wasn't me'. At first I got very angry, furious in fact, then I researched it and realised he had been dissacociating during the infidelities.

When he went to IC he kept asking her questions about the after effects of abuse and she couldn't or wouldn't tell him, just said he needed discover his own 'why'. He stopped going because the answers weren't inside him. It was actually Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but no-one diagnosed it.....they don't do that very often in the UK. So we had to put the pieces together ourselves.

He didn't ask me to do anything for him, but I searched the internet and found a couple of websites dealing with male survivors, which gave me loads of information. I got him to read them and he found his answers. There's a lot of info on the net, thankfully.

Often, because he was working, I'd have more than him and I would scour the internet or download books and read them, the ask him to read them, which he did.

I told him what I'd found out and he'd say 'yes, that's what it's like' or 'no, that's not it'. So he did his part in being honest and was always willing to face it and talk. He did a lot of crying, but that's almost disappeared now.

When he realised he wasn't responsible for the abuse we had a huge breakthrough and he finally reported it to the police. It takes a long time for them to let go of the shame and the guilt. He said 'but I kept going back for more abuse'....and that shame held up his progress for quite a while. Gradually those feelings lessened as we found out about the ploys and grooming techniques abusers use to enable the abuse to take place.

In between all this, I would have a meltdown and get angry because of my own hurt and raw emotions, but he would focus on me, and he would hold me while I sobbed. The fact remained that he'd committed adultery and my heart was torn to shreds, so in between me helping him, he was putting in a lot of effort to help me heal, too.

Even after doing all this I still can't fully appreciate how it must feel to be abused, but I've read enough of other people's accounts to know that it's a massive, massive trauma for a kid that leaves an awful lot of damage in its wake and badly affects their adult relationships.

It was a year of very intense, hard work on both our parts, and it's now not the focus of our lives anymore. It's as if we've been through a very long, dark tunnel and we're now emerging into the sunshine. Last night, as we cuddled up in bed he told me that I'd saved his life. I cried. It's very humbling to hear that from someone you love so dearly.